And frankly with all respect to John, I’m not buying it either. It seems to me to be nothing but an easy out .. a sop to the conscience.

The intramural gamesmanship in the magazine business may very well have been the result of the magazine’s demise, but the fact of the matter is as even John says, real conservatives have been having problems with them from the get-go.

Setting themselves up as solidly GOP establishment certainly did not help the readership figures, and it seems clear that factor alone is what set up the rest of what Podhoretz describes in his piece.

Sorry, John… this was not about being a team player or not, it was about the team you chose. Example:

How else are we supposed to interpret statements like this? The Weekly Standard has all too often been weak-kneed in it’s criticism of the Democrats (when it could be bothered to criticize them at all).

To a certain extent, John is right here. This was not specifically about being anti-Trump. Instead, this was about The Weekly Standard being pro-establishment when the majority of the Republican rank-and-file has identified (correctly) the establishment GOP as the biggest roadblock to actual conservative governance.

After all, what do you think the rejection of the GOP rank-and-file of Jeb Bush in favor of Ted Cruz and ultimately Donald Trump was all about?

I’ve stated here many times that Donald Trump was never my guy, and I will certainly suggest that he was not perfect for the situation. That said however, he is certainly better than anybody that the establishment GOP has coughed up in many many years. Jeb Bush? Mitt Romney? John McCain? This is the best batch of conservatives you guys could come up with?

Consider that the last couple of large style heroes of the up Republican rank-and-file have been Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. Consider also however that those are precisely the people that the establishment GOP has struggled for decades to remove from their collective memory.

And if you didn’t like Donald Trump, and you had actually correctly identified the anti-establishment mood of the GOP rank-and-file, why didn’t you jump in behind Ted Cruz?

The answer is simple enough… He wasn’t GOP establishment either. And you are.

In the end instead of arguing for right versus wrong, the only team The Weekly Standard was ever on was big government Republicans… and never never in the corner of the GOP rank-and-file. I say to you, if it had been on the side of the rank-and-file GOP, it would have sold a lot better and probably never would have been closed.It would have been too profitable to even consider such a move.

I will not celebrate the passing of the Weekly Standard. Instead I will mourn for what it could have and should have been.

And never was.

Addendum I, Eric

And had you noticed how very few people are taking George Will seriously anymore? Same reason… which I wrote to back in 2015

Addendum II(David L):

Rather than add my two cents, I am in for a Canadian quarter. While George Will is noted for much talking while saying little, Kate, of Small Dead Animals is noted for talking little but saying much. In the regard, I post Kate’s entire article: